Totowa stations police officers at elementary schools

TOTOWA — The borough’s two elementary schools became the first in Passaic and Bergen counties to post armed police officers in their buildings as a protective measure following the shooting deaths in a Connecticut elementary school last month.

To general praise from the public, borough and district officials said, borough police officers, working two shifts, began on Wednesday to stand guard: two at any given time in the Washington Park School, with 700 students, and one at the Memorial School, with 300 kids.

Jesse Castillo went to the school Thursday to bring his son, a 3rd-grader, his asthma medication. He had to sign-in with the officer for the first time.

“I felt it was safe for the kids,” Castillo said. “They should do this from now on.”

With officers earning $40 an hour during six daily shifts, from 8:30 a.m. to as late as 5:45 p.m., the program will cost the district about $189,000 a year. Officer George DiPasquale, vice-president of the Totowa Policemen’s Benevolent Association, said the union cut its normal hourly overtime rate about in half to accommodate the schools.

Visitors will be required to present their driver’s license, which will be recorded, and could also be scanned with a hand-held metal detector.

Posting the officers as school guards was a culmination of discussions between the district and borough dating back several years, even before the Dec. 14 events at the Sandy Hook School in Newtown, Conn., where a gunman killed 20 elementary school children and six adults.

“There is no one in the school district that can take out a shooter, said Vincent Varcadipane, the district superintendent. “We’re basically defenseless here.”

The officers are likely the first to be used as guards in North Jersey schools, but other districts have armed school resource officers on the premises. Totowa had no permanent resource officers.

Law enforcement officials in Bergen and Passaic counties are unaware of any district other than Totowa hiring full-time local cops.

“There is a lot of talk about things like that, but one of the big factors is cost,” said John Reardon, the Wayne police chief. “It might be easier for a small town to do something like that … We need to figure out what we are doing nationally.”

Wayne, which borders Totowa has 14 public schools.

Brian Higgins, the Bergen County police chief, said his department made officers available to schools and houses of worship in the days after the Newtown shootings, but no one took the department up on its offer. The county police patrol county schools, including Bergen County Community College, and his department also has school resource officers throughout the county schools.

Marlboro, a sprawling affluent township in Monmouth County, also began posting an armed officer at its schools when post-holiday classes resumed there Wednesday.

School officials in Marlboro say eight armed, uniformed township police officers worked solely on security at each of the district's schools while classes were in session Wednesday. They joined two armed school resource officers who have been present in Marlboro schools since last year.

The additional officers will remain in the schools on a temporary basis while town and school district officials discuss further security improvements.

Totowa’s program was approved by the Board of Education on Dec. 19. several days before of the National Rifle Association’s call to put armed guards in every school to protect students against shootings.

So far, the officers have had positive responses from the parents that were screened, said Officer Gary Potenzone. And parents waiting to pick-up their children outside of Washington Park School on Thursday were pleased with the change.